page_title: Anastasiya Vertinskaya
section_title: Retirement
hierarchical_section_title: Anastasiya Vertinskaya / Biography / Retirement
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Персонажи фильма «Гамлет», 1964, СССР. На марке представлены артисты Анастасия Вертинская и Иннокентий Смоктуновский. Серия почтовых марок «Сцены из советских фильмов» из 2-х. На каждой марке помещена сцена из фильма и его название. Дата выпуска: 1966. Страна: СССР (Россия) / USSR (Russia). Номинал: 10 к / 10 k Michel #3191
context_page_description: Anastasiya Alexandrovna Vertinskaya, is a Soviet and Russian actress, who came to prominence in the early 1960s with her acclaimed performances in Scarlet Sails, Amphibian Man and Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet.
  In the 1990s, disillusioned with the state of cinema at home, she went abroad to teach and spent 12 years in France, England, the United States and Switzerland. In 1988 Vertinskaya was designated a People's Artist of Russia. She is also a recipient of the Order of Honour and the Order of Friendship.
context_section_description: In 1989 the invitation came from the Oxford University for Vertinskaya and Alexander Kalyagin to give master classes on theatrical craftsmanship. She spent the next 12 years teaching in England, France and Switzerland. "I realized that one had to reinvent oneself literally seven times during one's lifetime, otherwise one wouldn't be able to fully realize oneself. Why should I sit and moan about good roles eluding me? You need to learn to turn your back on the scene that doesn't suit you," she later explained in an interview, speaking also of how relieved she felt at having dropped this 'everlasting worry' about the need of being continuously in demand. 
  After Oxford Vertinskaya taught drama at the Comedie-Francaise  (Théâtre de la République), at the Chekhov Theatre school, and at EFAS (European Film Actor School). Her play Chekhov, Act III, compiled of third acts from the Russian playwright's three classic plays ran successfully at the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers. Later she warmly remembered her European students' passionate love of the arts and their determination.
  In 2000 Vertinskaya returned home. In 2002 she appeared in Imago, the stage production based upon M. Kurochkin's interpretation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion directed by Nina Tchusova. In her 2009 Izvestiya interview Vertinskaya expressed regret about how little worthy roles were there to be found in the modern Russian theatre and said she'd rather stay away from the stage at all than start playing "hitmen's mums" (one such suggestion she had received). "I have no immediate plans concerning the stage and see no personal drama in it," she said.
  Vertinskaya's two major concerns in the 21st century were the Russian Actors Foundation charity she founded in 1991, as well as restoring and producing her father's records; three of them came out in France. In 2010 Vertinskaya published a book of poetry she'd been working on for five years. She is also involved in her son Stepan Mikhalkov's restaurant business in Moscow.
caption: Vertinskaya and Smoktunovsky in Hamlet. 1966 Soviet postage stamp
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